Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

• 1. Two Million Words

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  Kingdom Come: Deliverance II has a script of 2.2 million words, according to its lead developer, Daniel Vávra. That tops the previous record holder, Baldur's Gate 3, whose script runs to around two million words according to Guinness World Records. This 2025 role-playing game spends that enormous word count on a medieval world that tries very hard to feel real. Its hero is a man-at-arms caught in a civil war, and his own crimes can land him in a pillory. Where and when does a story this big unfold? Who stands beside the hero, and who stands against him? What happens when a game with this much ambition meets eager fans and loud critics before it even goes on sale? And how did players and reviewers respond once it finally arrived?

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• 2. Bohemia in 1403

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  In 1403 the Kingdom of Bohemia sat inside both the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire. Its territory lies in what is now the Czech Republic. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II spreads across two large areas that players can explore freely. One is the countryside of Bohemian Paradise. The other is the city of Kutná Hora and the land around it. Together they form a world twice the size of the first game's, which was a single connected map.

  Kutná Hora earns its place in the story because of silver. In the late Middle Ages it was the second-largest city in Bohemia, behind only Prague. Silver mining and coinage made it one of the richest economic centers in the country, and the game reflects that standing.

  Wenceslaus IV is the king at the centre of the civil war. He faces the invading Sigismund, King of Hungary and Croatia, together with Sigismund's allies. The story follows directly from the end of the first game and concludes the tale of its hero, Henry. Many of the characters who move through this landscape are based on real people from the period.

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• 3. Henry's Circle

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  Henry of Skalitz, played by Tom McKay, is the fictional hero at the centre of the story. He is a man-at-arms in the service of Sir Radzig Kobyla, played by Michael Pitthan, who is also his biological father. Henry leads a resistance on behalf of the imprisoned King Wenceslaus IV. It opposes the usurper Sigismund of Luxembourg, played by George Lenz. His motives are personal too. He wants revenge on Sigismund and his emissaries for killing his mother and his foster father.

  Sir Hans Capon of Pirkstein, a nobleman played by Luke Dale, travels at Henry's side. Sir Istvan Toth, played by Logan Hillier, was the main antagonist of the first game and returns in the sequel. So does Father Godwin, a parish priest played by Euan Macnaughton. The lord Hanush of Leipa also comes back, and the cast list credits both Peter Hosking and Daniel Vávra for the role.

  Jan Žižka is one of many historical figures in the game, alongside Jobst of Moravia, Otto von Bergow, Markvart of Úlice and John II of Liechtenstein. The list also includes Hynek I Suchý Čert, Oldřich Vavák of Hradec, Petr Píšek and Martin Oderin. Tom McKay's performance as Henry would later appear among the categories of the Golden Joystick Awards and the British Academy Games Awards.

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• 4. Silver Under Kuttenberg

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  The road from Rattay to Trosky Castle is where the plot begins. Sir Hans Capon, Henry and an entourage mean to question Otto von Bergow about his loyalty to King Sigismund. Bandits attack and rob their camp. Henry and Capon escape, but the castle refuses them entry because they cannot prove who they are. At a nearby tavern Capon starts a brawl and blames Henry for it. The two fall out and Capon leaves.

  A wedding in the village of Semine becomes the next lead, because Bergow is expected to attend. He never arrives, and the groom, Olda Semine, secretly slips away. Henry and Capon reconcile, but another brawl lands them both in a cell at Trosky Castle. Capon is sentenced to hang for poaching. Bergow arrives before the execution, and Capon goes free. Bergow still declines to explain his allegiances. He instead sends the pair to help suppress local banditry.

  Soldiers from Nebakov Fortress join the effort, and a captive bandit at Trosky Castle can reveal the trap. Olda Semine is in league with bandits who have quietly taken over Nebakov. If the player tells Bergow, Henry is sent to confront Semine and may side with him or let him die. Either way, Bergow's force fails to retake the fortress, and Henry and Capon are captured. Hanush of Leipa and Radzig Kobyla send Father Godwin to find them. The bandit leader Jan Žižka, who turns out to oppose Sigismund, frees them after Godwin helps put down a rebellion by Bergow's spy, Istvan Toth.

  Nebakov then falls to an assault led by Bergow, Toth and Markvart von Aulitz. Henry, Godwin and Žižka end up in Trosky Castle again, while Capon is held for ransom. Katherine, a cook working with Žižka, frees them. Henry learns that Sigismund plans to kill his enemies, John II of Liechtenstein among them. He meets Toth and kills him, recovering the sword that Henry's foster father, Martin, made for Kobyla. The group escapes through underground tunnels. Henry, Žižka and Katherine head for Kuttenberg, as the plot calls Kutná Hora, while Godwin returns to Kobyla and Hanush.

  At Suchdol, Margrave Jobst warns Henry's group to stop acting as bandits, since he has negotiated a truce with Sigismund. In Kuttenberg's Jewish quarter, Henry and Katherine find Liechtenstein under the protection of a vigilante named Samuel. Henry warns him about Sigismund and learns that Capon is held at Bergow's castle of Maleshov. With a mercenary group led by a man called "Dry Devil", Henry and Žižka infiltrate Maleshov. They free Capon and a fellow prisoner, Vauquelin Brabant.

  A Kuttenberg council meeting brings the darkest turn. Henry sneaks in and hears Sigismund and Aulitz order a pogrom against the city's Jews. He races to Raborsch, where a loyalist lords' meeting is attacked by a force under Bergow. The attack is repelled, but the lords are captured. Back in Kuttenberg, Henry helps Samuel lead the Jews out of the city. There he learns that Samuel is the illegitimate son of Martin.

  The plan to free the captive lords starts with taking Bergow himself as a bargaining chip. Using mercenaries hired by Brabant and a stolen bombard, the group storms Maleshov and seizes him. Bergow argues that Sigismund's hold on Bohemia cannot last. He suggests stealing the silver reserves kept at Sigismund's royal residence in Kuttenberg, where the lords are also held. Some of the party pose as a papal legate to draw attention away, while the rest crawl through Kuttenberg's mines to reach the silver. They rescue the lords. Then Brabant and his mercenaries try to grab the silver, and in the scuffle Brabant escapes.

  Suchdol castle becomes the final refuge. Sigismund's army has left Bohemia, but a force under Aulitz, Bergow and Brabant besieges the castle. Dry Devil mortally wounds Aulitz. Henry rides out to fetch help from Jobst, Hanush and Kobyla, and returns with reinforcements that drive the attackers off. In the epilogue, an apparition of his mother and Martin visits Henry, and Kobyla offers him his sword.

  Endings branch from there. A virtuous Henry hears his parents say they are proud before they depart into the afterlife, while a more ruthless Henry is reproached by them. He can accept Kobyla's sword and become an adventurer or a soldier. If he declines it, he retires as a villager in Rattay or a burgher in Kuttenberg and settles down with one of three love interests. A secret ending belongs to a Henry who pursued no romance and stayed chaste. He retires to Rattay and reunites with Theresa.

  Two scenes follow the credits. In one, Dry Devil tries to shoot an apple off Žižka's head and blinds him in one eye. In the other, a flashback, Sigismund learns of the silver theft and angrily trashes his chamber.

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• 5. Crime, Combat and Choice

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  A guard who catches Henry committing a crime can offer a range of punishments, and each one is a grim period detail. The options are a fine, caning, human branding or time in a pillory. The player can also flee, fight the guard, or use dialogue skills to be excused. The crimes themselves include lockpicking and pickpocketing through minigames, along with murder, assault and poaching. Non-player characters may spot the act, or may work out that Henry took missing items. Loot from theft or from corpses sits in the inventory marked with a red hand symbol.

  Oratory, Charisma and Intimidation were the dialogue skills of the first game. The sequel adds Appearance, Coercion and Dominate. What a character says to Henry depends on whether he has reached a sufficient level in the skill he chose. Conversations are also central to the crime system and the trading system. Missions can be handled in different ways, communities react to the choices, and those reactions shape Henry's daily life and development.

  For fighting, the player can choose between melee and ranged weapons. Crossbows and early firearms cover the ranged side, and the crossbow can even be fired from horseback. Melee choices include short swords, longswords, heavy weapons such as maces, and polearms. Some of these can be held in one hand, which leaves room for a shield. Players pick the direction of each attack and can block incoming blows. That opens up special combinations and counterattacks, some of which can only be unlocked through quests.

  A compass with location markers and a map with fast travel handle navigation. In the first game, fast travel brought ambushes by opponents. The sequel brings encounters with friendly characters as well as enemies. For hostile encounters, the player gets an avoidance option that shows its percentage chance of success. Accepting the encounter, or failing to avoid it, ends the fast travel and forces a conversation or a fight.

  A hardcore mode arrived in a post-release update. It removes fast travel, hides compass directions and the player's position on the map, and conceals the health and stamina bars. Players who start a hardcore game are asked to pick debuffs, one of which makes raising skill levels harder.

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• 6. Building the Sequel

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  July 2019 is when work on the sequel began, after the first game and its downloadable content had shipped. Warhorse Studios had 131 employees that year and had grown to around 250 by spring 2024 at the latest. The team wanted this game to be what the first game had been meant to be, using better resources and more experience. It runs on a heavily customized version of the CryEngine. The music comes from the Czech composers Jan Valta and Adam Sporka.

  Historians, universities and museums lent their expertise again, so that the world would feel "realistic, immersive and believable." Motion capture was supplemented this time by facial capture, which the first game lacked. Stunt riders also took part in the work.

  Martin Klíma, the executive producer and a co-founder of Warhorse Studios, named The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as a major influence. That was Bethesda Game Studio's 2002 action role-playing game. Design director Viktor Bocan pointed to FromSoftware's Dark Souls series and to Elden Ring as influences on the design.

  In April 2024 the game was announced in a recorded video set in St. Barbara's Church in Kutná Hora. It was released for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S on the 4th of February 2025. Three retail versions were offered. The Standard Edition was the base game. The Gold Edition added three DLC packs planned for later, equipment for the protagonist, and a bonus called "Shields of Seasons Passing." The Collector's Edition held everything in the Gold Edition plus several physical items. Standard and Gold were sold as digital downloads and physical copies. Every pre-order also earned a bonus quest called "The Lion Crest."

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• 7. Culture War Crossfire

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  In January 2025 the Saudi Arabian outlet VGA4A reported that the game would be refused classification and banned in Saudi Arabia. The reason given was its portrayal of same-sex relationships. Saudi Arabia had previously banned Final Fantasy XVI and The Last of Us Part II for similar reasons.

  Daniel Vávra denied that any country had banned the game. He stressed that such relationships were optional, saying: "gay characters were already in KCD1. If you want Henry to try a same-sex adventure, feel free. If you don't want to, you don't have to."

  Some players also objected loudly to the expanded same-sex romance options for Henry and to the presence of a black character. Public relations manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling said he felt "fed up" with being caught in the culture war. He emphasised that the studio's goal was a "rich, immersive historically accurate experience."

  When reviews arrived, critics spent far more time on how the world actually ran, starting with how stable it was on launch day.

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• 8. Reviews, Records and Awards

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  Metacritic summed up the critical response as "generally favorable," and OpenCritic reported that 95% of critics recommended the game. Reviewers praised the immersive open world, the role-playing mechanics and the story. Joshua Wolens of PC Gamer compared it with "system-heavy" games such as Morrowind. He called it a "ludicrously ambitious and peculiar thing that somehow fulfills its ambition and peculiarity." He also liked how its varied plot lines and activities let players live as a soldier, spy, gambler or blacksmith.

  Reviewers noted that the game ran well on release, with few noticeable bugs or technical problems. Brendan Lowry of Windows Central wrote that "what Warhorse has built here undoubtedly stands tall as one of the most visually impressive games ever developed." In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave it a combined score of 31 out of 40.

  On release day the game topped Steam's top-sellers list and broke even financially. It sold more than 1 million units that day. Its peak concurrent player count on Steam reached 159,351, beating the first game by more than 60,000 players. The sixth record in as many days came at 256,206 players. Two million copies sold within two weeks, and by February 2026 the total passed 5 million worldwide. It was the 15th best-selling game of 2025 in the US.

  PC Gamer chose it as its Game of the Year. Its name also appears in the category lists of Gamescom 2024, where Best Audio, Most Epic and Best PC Game were on the board. The Game Awards 2025 listed it for Game of the Year, Best Narrative and Best Role Playing Game. The D.I.C.E. Awards listed it for Role-Playing Game of the Year, game direction and game design. The Steam Awards, the Ultra Game Awards and the International Film Music Critics Association Awards included it too, the last for the Valta and Sporka score. The Ultra Game Awards list even has a Best DLC category naming all three paid packs.

  On the 16th of January 2025, Warhorse Studios revealed a DLC roadmap. Free improvements after launch would include a barber feature and horse racing. Three paid packs followed during 2025: Brushes with Death, Legacy of the Forge and Mysteria Ecclesiae. They were sold together in the expansion pass "Shields of Seasons Passing." On the 12th of November 2025 came the Royal Edition, bundling the main game with every update and DLC pack. In May 2026 the studio announced it was developing a new project in the Kingdom Come series.

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